Conspiracy theory researcher and debunker

Month: November 2018

One of the the things that drew me to writing about conspiracy theories in the first place is having the last name of a family involved in some of the most prominent ones in recent history.

The Rothschild banking family has been accused of everything from funding both sides of pretty much every war of the last several hundred years to crashing world economies at will to controlling the weather to secretly being the ancestors of Adolf Hitler.

I am not related to this family. I know of no connection in my family to anyone in the prominent Rothschild clan, nor has any connection ever been presented to me.

And yet, virtually everything I write about or film related to debunking conspiracy theories gets rebutted with “of course a Rothschild would say that.”

Believers likely think it’s because Q is gathering the intel he drops on his following. Skeptics might say it’s because Q only posts when something happens that he can use to retroactively prove his own existence.

They also argue among themselves endlessly over whether or not “something big is happening” and what the plan is.

I did a Twitter thread on this that got picked up by some big news sites, and got a truly insane Neon Revolt article written about me, as well. So RIP my mentions.

QAnon acolytes love jargon, and they love using jargon to prove that the conspiracy theory they’ve invested so much time in is real.

One of the most popular QAnon “proofs” is “the map,” a massive layout of how centuries of conspiracy theories all connect to each other in ways only Q can reveal – and only Q believers can understand.

To outsiders, it’s proof that everything skeptics believe about conspiracy theorists is true, that they’re deranged and obsessive and need heavy doses of medication. And to believers, it’s proof that the skeptics are asleep and unaware, totally oblivious to the maleficence going on all around them.

Every election cycle seems a little more beset by conspiracy theories, outrageous and unfounded accusations, and bizarre plots. They get weirder, and yet more normal at the same time.

The conspiracy theory community has mobilized to support Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans. And they’re going much further than anything that happened to John McCain in 2000, desperately trying to shore up their support with suburban white women by terrifying them into a thinking a rape caravan of ISIS invaders is (very slowly) making its way north to take their jobs, force them to drive electric cars, and treat refugees humanely.

But one day before the election, polling for the House of Representatives doesn’t look good, nor does it look good for Republicans to keep their death grip on state legislatures.

And if there’s one thing conspiracy theorists are good at, it’s making excuses for why the stuff they theorized didn’t come to pass.